Hey, everybody. How are things? You doing all right?

I got a little whiny there last week because everything felt a little much. Our show was getting ready to open (with a few loose ends untied even by then), work was rough and things just felt pulled-apart and strained.

Then the show started, things went fine, even better than I expected, I got some rest last week and some Schlitterbahn season passes (always good for the psyche), and now I feel like I got my pre-summer second wind.

The week has been full of really great little moments that even in the whirlwind of stress and work and staying up late to get things done every night, can't really be diminished. Let's see... there's:

• Star Wars: I haven't seen the third one and I probably won't get a chance to until late this weekend, but seeing so many people, from my brother to grown men in my sketch troupe, light up like that has been really nice. They're excited. Their veil of cynicism about the last two films has been lifted. So has mine, I guess. I'm actually excited about seeing it whereas I was just absolutely dreading going to Attack of the Clones. I felt saddled with obligation going to see it and it's nice to have a big cheesy popcorn movie to go check out.
  
  
• Sound design: My first ever "Sound designer" credit is for our current Latino Comedy Project show. I didn't compose any of the music or anything; but I did put together the sound cues, interstitial music and pre-show and intermission songs. I love editing sound (it helps to have easy-to-use software like Sound Forge), but really I'm just jazzed to be able to put some music people probably haven't heard in front of an audience; it's every iPod owner's secret fantasy.
  
  
• New York!: I'm going to New York in a few weeks. We've already got tickets to see The Pillowman and an Upright Citizen's Brigade show, so that should be 100 different flavors of fun. Television Without Pity is going to do a Re-capades public reading that I'll be a part of. It's Friday June 3 at 7 p.m.
  
  
• HD: My folks finally jumped on the HD wagon and my dad and I have been bonding a bit over things like OTA-antenna specs, HD-PVR prices and the like. When I got my HD a few years ago, I did tons of research, so it was nice to be able to offer some advice.
  
  
• One year anniversary: We didn't really get to do much in the way of celebrating, but it brought back some very nice wedding memories. We're looking forward to spending more time together this summer.
  
  
• Turning 30: Not as big a bummer as I thought it would be. In fact, it just made me create a whole new list of goals for myself for the next 10 years.
  
  
• It's over!: Smallville's season finale was this week, which means that as soon as I get over this 90-minute hump, I'm on recap vacation! Yay!
  
  
• In the space of three weeks, I'm getting to review Six Feet Under's third season, The Sopranos' fifth season and, in a stunning coup even I can't believe, Chappelle's Show's second season DVD set. The extras on the Chappelle set are pretty damned fantastic.
  
  
• We're back to updating Space Monkeys! again. The pace is not quite as fast as we'd like, but at least we're not going weeks and weeks without new comics. PJ and I are recharging our batteries right now, and we should have a lot more time this summer to make some major improvments to the site and get out a good run of strips.
  
  
• Did I mention Schlitterbahn? We got our season passes, which was a pain in the ass (especially when we found out they would have only been $80 if we'd gotten them before Jan. 31), but once we had them, we went to the park, which was almost completely empty on a Sunday. It's so early in the season, that you can get parking right in front, walk right in and only wait about 15 minutes to ride the Master Blaster. The water's a bit chilly, but that just makes the rides that much scarier.
  
  
• Homestar Runner is coming to Austin. That is awesome.
  
  
• The XL Blogs now have comments enabled. Sure, the "Li'l Floaty Omie head" is gone, but I think it's a pretty decent trade-off.
  
  
• Diego and Rico both bravely made the transition to a post-neutered world. They're still frisky and cute, even if they're gone from kittens to teenagers.
  
  
• Pamie's book drive goes global. Hells yeah.

And those are just the things I remember. So it's definitely not gloom and doom around here. It's been kind of a wonderful week.

You can hear a radio feature on ArtsEclectic from KUT featuring Karinna and Adrian about our current shows. It's in MP3. The link to the sound file itself is at the bottom of the page. Neat.

Next-to-last recap of the season for Smallville is up at TWOP:

Tapioca Terror -- A Smallville High senior wants things to stay just the way they are after graduation; even if it means turning other students into tapioca-pudding statues. Meanwhile, Lex and Papa Luthor bond over some torture and bondage. It's a family show, after all.

It's official. Arrested Development returns for a third season. It's a "Full order," but you never know -- they could cut it short like they did Season Two.

It's Sith-related.

Good God, I'm dorky.

You can see a video of me in the Nintendo games van that I did for work here.

Please, harsh people of the Internet. Be kind.

This is why I'm a print, not TV, journalist.